Cathy
Davidson, in her book “Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention will
transform the Way we Live, Work, and Learn”, reveals the implications of
technology on learning. We blog, tweet, text, and email as if by instinct. Yet,
far too many schools and workplaces are designed for the last century, not the
one we live in! Davidson opens a window onto the possibilities of a world in
which the rigid ideas of the 20th century have been wiped away and
replaced with the flowing, collaborative spirit built into the very design of
the Internet.

Our charge is to rethink how we need
to be organizing our schools to maximize the opportunities of this digital age.
It seems that even our brain has changed because of new computational
capacities. “Contemporary neuroscience insists that nothing about our brain is
quite so fixed or static, including its progress and its decline.” Rather, we
are constantly learning.

The brain is designed to learn,
unlearn, and relearn, and nothing limits our capabilities more profoundly than
our own attitudes toward them. If we are going to meet 21st century challenges
and reap the full benefits of a digital world, we will need to ‘rethink’ old
ways of teaching and learning.

What are the implications of this
new brain research for Garden County Schools? Education must be more
student-centered and actively embrace varying learning styles. Effective
integration of technology into the daily work of students is more critical.
Increased collaboration and communication with local and global communities are
more important now than ever before. A new lens to look at how we learn is
needed. We must change the context in which we view learning; this will alter
how we best prepare these digital natives for their world of tomorrow!